A Deranged Anti-Semite Accuses Me of Libel

I wrote earlier this week about a 9/11 Truther named Kevin Barrett. Barrett once taught at the University of Wisconsin, where his belief that the United States government, in conjunction with Israel, carried out the September 11 attacks made him controversial. Back in 2006, Barrett’s crackpot views were seen as an issue of academic freedom, and the University of Wisconsin rejected suggestions that Barrett was an inappropriate person to have the privilege of teaching that state’s youth.

A few days ago, I linked to an article in the Jerusalem Post that brought us up to date on Kevin Barrett’s delusions. He now argues that not only 9/11, but all of the subsequent terrorist attacks that have been attributed to Islamic terrorists in Europe and elsewhere, and for which Islamic groups have claimed responsibility, were really “false flag” operations perpetrated by American and Israeli intelligence organizations. Why? To stir up hatred against Muslims and thereby perpetuate NATO’s hegemony over Europe, or something like that.

In my post earlier this week, I quoted this passage from the Jerusalem Post article:

In a recording aired on the Iranian television channel’s news site, Dr. Kevin Barrett, a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is heard saying that the current rash of terror attacks were not perpetrated by Islamists, rather carried out as “false-flag” operations under the auspices of the American and Israeli militaries. …

Press TV cited Barrett as continuing on to say that the American public is being hoodwinked by the mainstream American media which is being controlled by Zionists.

“We know from all sorts of research that Zionist Jews are wildly over-represented in the US media” the Iranian news agency quoted him as saying.

He also argued that the Zionists and the mainstream media have used these so-called false-flag attacks to villainize Muslims in an effort to garner support for Republican President hopeful Donald Trump and to convince the American people to engage in military conflict with Muslim states.

I added this comment:

Because, as we all know, the “mainstream” media are overwhelmingly pro-Trump.

Kevin Barrett took exception to my post. Not because I said his false flag theory is “delusional” and “absurd.” Not because I said that hiring him to teach college students about the War on Terror is equivalent to hiring an astronomy professor who thinks the Moon is made of green cheese. Not because I described Barrett as a “nut,” or because I referred to his “lunatic views.” Not, most tellingly, because I called him a “garden-variety anti-Semite.” These things, Barrett is willing to accept.

Rather, Kevin Barrett is upset because I quoted the Jerusalem Post’s statement that in his interview on Iranian television, Barrett indicated that American media, being controlled by Jews, was playing up Islamic terror attacks in order to lend support to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Barrett sent this email to our Power Line mailbox:

He also argued that the Zionists and the mainstream media have used these so-called false-flag attacks to villainize Muslims in an effort to garner support for Republican President hopeful Donald Trump …

WTF? That’s nuts. Obviously most of the hardline Zionists and neocons hate Trump. The JPost, like so many hardline Zionist propagandist outlets, invents ludicrous lies out of thin air to try to make their targets look bad.

Hinderaker believes the insane lie from JPost and draws the conclusion: “Keven Barrett stands exposed both as a lunatic and as a garden variety anti-Semite.”

There is an element of comedy here. I wrote some rather harsh things about Mr. Barrett, all of which he apparently concedes are true. What he objects to is the Post’s interpretation of his interview, to the effect that America’s television networks are trying to help the Trump campaign. That inference is certainly false, as I said in my original post. And I think the Post was wrong in attributing that thinking to Barrett. But what was the libel? This is the one point on which Barrett and I agree! The critical things that I wrote about Barrett were entirely different.

Barrett’s email caused me to dive deeper into his conspiracy-obsessed, anti-Semitic world. What I found is interesting. It illustrates a couple of points. First, how far gone in insanity a “professor” can be and still be taken seriously by an American university like Wisconsin. Second, how Iran’s mullahs rely on a stable of crazed Westerners with superficially plausible resumes to help them to spread their lies.

First, take a look at Veterans Today, a web site which Barrett includes in his email signature and which he appears to run. “Veterans Today” is replete with Barrett’s false flag theories. It is technically inept, so that only around one-half of the videos on the site actually play. But the headlines and other text give you a pretty good sense of where Barrett and his handful of collaborators are coming from:

“False flag alert raised to red! Neocons running scared.”

“Guantanamo Commander charged with selling jumpsuits to ISIS.” It should be noted that in Barrett’s world, ISIS doesn’t actually exist, but is a construct of American and Israeli intelligence services.

“All major corridors of power in the United States are completely under the domination of a genocidal foreign entity called Israel.”

“Hey Zionists: You can take my anti-Semitism and SHOVE IT!”

Some of Barrett’s greatest moments don’t appear to be preserved on YouTube, or at least would require a more thorough search. But this clip, recorded just a few days ago on Iranian television, is a classic. Barrett is on opposite a British guy who is actually sane. So we have an Iranian host, Kevin Barrett spouting his deranged pro-Iran, anti-Israel and anti-US line, and a guy named Andre Walker who thinks he has gone through the looking-glass. It is 23 minutes long, but worth watching because it conveys a sense of how shameless the Left’s and Iran’s attacks on the U.S. and Israel are:

If you want a full explication of the “false flag” theory that Barrett has made a living on for more than a decade, you can watch part of this hour-plus video, released just yesterday, which is titled “False Flag Weekly News.” How much you watch depends on how many brain cells you have to lose:

Idiotic, hate-filled fantasy can be profitable, but Kevin Barrett has slid down the food chain: ten years ago, he was supported by Wisconsin taxpayers at a respectable public university. Today, he is a shill–I assume a paid shill, although I don’t know anything about his financial arrangements–for the government of Iran.

The New York Times defended Barrett when he was under attack by Wisconsin yahoos in 2006–“yahoos” being those who thought it was a bad idea to hire a nut who thought George Bush ordered the September 11 attacks to teach the war on terror, in preference to the dozens or hundreds of other qualified job applicants who weren’t crazy. Since then, the Times has gone silent. It would be interesting to know whether the University of Wisconsin officials and the reporters who saw the 2006 controversy as nothing but a free speech issue have second thoughts, given what we now know about the insane, malignant and Iran-sponsored mind of Kevin Barrett.

So, Kevin, that’s my opinion of you: “insane, malignant and Iran-sponsored.” Oh, yes: also a “vicious anti-Semite and anti-American.” If you think any of that is false and defamatory, please call my lawyer. 612.354.1239.